


I Need A Gangster

by tristinai



Series: Bad Decisions [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Blood and Gore, Convin friendship, DC comic book references, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Masturbation, Torture, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Wounds, background Hannor, drug-induced dreams, gangster!Nines, past Convin, reed900, unhinged!Nines, vague descriptions of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 20:30:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18156683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristinai/pseuds/tristinai
Summary: An arms dealer targets Gavin Reed to get back at Detroit’s drug King Pin, leaving the detective critically injured.





	I Need A Gangster

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who left their reactions to Nines' POV in [What Gangsters Do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18064955%22). It was great having a chance to read what all of you thought. Now, we get back to the regular series. This story has received [NixObscura's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NixObscura/pseuds/NixObscura) seal of approval, who was kind enough to take time out of her evening to help me with the edit. Thank you so much <3.
> 
> Before continuing, please make sure you read the tags first. This one is the most violent in the series due to graphic depictions of torture and descriptions of mutilated bodies. Though it has an E rating, it barely earns it, with only a quick sex scene. Let me know what you think. Happy reading!

The snapping of cartilage has him choking back a cry, blood spurting from his nostrils as pain explodes from the point of impact. His face twists to the side, face stinging from the multitude of bruises he’s already received. Through his blurred vision, he watches as Elroy Murphy readjusts his brass knuckles, blood spattered across the arms dealer’s fist and staining the cuff of his leather coat. Getting jumped and used as a punching bag was not what Gavin signed up for when he followed up on a tip for a B&E case he was investigating. As it turns out, the fucker set him up and now he’s stuck on some rooftop fuck knows where and playing a game of twenty questions he doesn’t even know how to answer. Why’d he send his partner Chen home instead of bringing her along? Guaranteed, both of them could have taken these assholes and he’d be at home right now rolling his eyes as Nines once again lectures him on his atrocious eating habits while making some mouth-watering dish that’ll have Gavin on his knees later to ‘thank’ the chef. What Gavin would give to go back 2 hours earlier and have the foresight to get his ass back home instead of playing ‘workaholic detective’ after his shift had ended. It’s not like the break ins and petty crimes he’s been stuck investigating is the kind of shit that will bring him any closer to the promotion he’s been gunning for.

 

Blood fills the back of his throat from the burst vessels in his nose and Gavin spits out a mouthful of it. His eyes water at the thought of Nines. _Babe, I’m so fucking sorry._

 

“Gonna ask this one last time, Detective, and I better like your fucking answer: you one of Kamski’s boys?”

 

Gavin struggles against the two men holding him, glowers at their ringleader. Murphy’s been on the DPD’s watch list for some time now, a person of interest with possible connections to Kamski. Last Gavin heard, shit went south a month earlier, some fallout with rumblings of a turf war. Not his case, not his concern, so why the fuck is he even out here? “Already told you I know jack shit about the asshole, never even met him. You looking for his crooks? I hear he’s balls deep in the Sixth.”

 

It’s common knowledge that half that precinct is bought, he can’t even bring himself to feel guilty for naming them.

 

Murphy’s fist connects with his cheek, hitting hard enough to break skin. Gavin’s head snaps back and fuck, does it hurt, but he’s not giving that asshole anything, biting back any sound before it can escape his lips. Blood dribbles down his chin, onto his neck and shirt and what a fucking day to not wear one of the few black tees in his closet. No amount of Nines scrunching his nose at Gavin’s old, thread-worn clothing could get the detective to run out and buy something new (and probably overpriced with a douchey-sounding name, if the gangster had his way) and Gavin had been very happy when Nines gave up in exasperation and declared, “If you refuse to wear anything sensible, I suppose you should wear nothing at all.” _That_ had easily been the best ending to any argument Gavin’s ever had.

 

“Getting real fucking tired of that mouth of yours,” Murphy snaps, his large hand grabbing the collar of Gavin’s coat and yanking the detective’s face closer. The smell and taste of blood is heavy on Gavin’s tongue and mixed in with the overpowering scent of whatever shitty cologne the arms dealer is wearing, the sudden urge to vomit leaves Gavin feeling nauseated. “You wanna explain why your name’s popped up after getting some o’ Kamski’s boys to squeal? ‘No one touches Gavin Reed’. You must be pretty fucking special, detective.”

 

“First I’ve fucking heard of this,” Gavin says, glaring.

 

He figures it’s Nines who gave the order but even that seems too sloppy for the gangster. Nines is not one disclose information freely. Hell, Gavin doesn’t even know where the guy lives and would not be surprised if he goes from suite to suite under a fake name. So naming anyone he’s connected to personally doesn’t quite fit the MO Gavin had compiled back when he was on the case.

 

“Fine, you wanna keep doing this? It don’t matter. All that does is that you mean something to that _fucker_ and after the shit he pulled last month, sending his fucking attack dog after me...well, I think it’s time for a little pay back.”

 

Murphy snaps his fingers and Gavin’s being dragged to the edge of the rooftop, trying futilely to escape the iron grip the two thugs have on him. Both have a good 5 or 6 inches and 100 pounds on him and not even a burst of adrenaline helps the detective maneuver his way out. He cusses at them, tries not to let the panic hitch his voice as his feet leave the safety of the concrete and he’s being dangled over the side of the building. The cool, evening air may as well be hotter than a high noon sun as sweat trickles down his face, Gavin’s heart hammering as his feet scrape against the side of the building.

 

“The fuck?! I have nothing to do with Kamski!” Gavin’s shouting, desperately clinging to the wrists of the thugs. “Fucking assholes, you fucking—!”

 

“No one can hear you scream, Detective! Shout all you fucking want, people ‘round here know better than to fuck with my boys and I!”

 

Murphy chuckles coldly and Gavin tries not to look down at the two story drop, struggles to hold onto his quickly slipping bravado: he’ll be damned if these are his last moments and he spends them whimpering or pissing himself.

 

The arms dealer regards Gavin curiously. “Ya know, you got some fight in you. If things were different, I might offer you twice what Kamski is, really stick it to that prick by using his own guy ‘gainst him. Bet there’s things you can tell me to help dethrone Detroit’s king pin, like who the fuck ‘Nines’ is and where the fuck I can find him.”

 

Gavin bristles at the mention of his lover and this does not go unnoticed.

 

“Funny. You claim to know nothing of Kamski. But you seem to know who the fuck his right hand is,” Murphy says, his expression darkening. “They say if Kamski sends Nines, you’re already one foot in the grave. He always gets the job done. And yet, that prick was careless enough to leave a job unfinished. And this...this is where you come in, Detective Reed.”

 

It’s hard to not react as Gavin’s mind is making the connections, realizes this is the asshole who shot Nines. _His_ Nines. Every instinct is telling him to lash out and any panic he felt is quickly being replaced with the urge to _fight_ , to make this asshole suffer for what he did. If Gavin wasn’t dangling off the side of a building, he’d wrap his hands around the fucker’s throat and squeeze and squeeze until the life was snuffed out of him, feel vessels break beneath his fingers, watch as the prick gasped and choked.

 

The law be fucking damned.

 

But Gavin has just enough sense to hold back, to not say anything that the asshole can use as ammunition against Nines. And he knows that if it’s a choice between giving the arms dealer info or the fall, Gavin will gladly plummet to his death.

 

“If you’re expecting me to talk, you can go fuck yourself.”

 

“Oh no, detective: I’m not the one you’re gonna be talking to,” Murphy says. There’s a smirk on his face, the scarred corner of his lip curling. “You see, my recent run in with death has given me a...let’s call it an ‘appreciation’ for ol’ Lady Luck. It’s got me thinking: I could _kill you_ , toss you somewhere Kamski’ll find your ugly corpse, and send a very clear message that Murphy’s not to be fucked with. Or, I can let you crawl back to your master and you can give him that message yourself.”

 

Murphy gestures and the thugs pull Gavin back to the rooftop, his feet only barely touching the ledge. Gavin would breathe a sigh of relief to have something solid under him but then the arms dealer is leaning in close, his chuckle setting the hairs on the back of the detective’s neck on edge.

 

“Why don’t we let luck decide what to do with you. You feeling lucky, Detective?”

 

Gavin wants to gag from the amount of blood in his mouth, gathers it and spits it directly in the asshole’s face. “Eat shit.”

 

It’s not the smartest thing he’s done and he anticipates the fist before it hits his face, busting the skin above his left brow. He nearly tumbles backwards off the roof from the force of it, the only thing keeping him in place the crooks holding him. Blood drips into his eye and he blinks it away blearily, tries to ignore the searing pain that’s ignited his skin. Fuck, did that hurt.

 

Murphy swipes away the blood and spit on his cheek, the look he’s giving the detective murderous. “Say, Bones, what was it you were asking me earlier?”

 

The thug to Gavin’s left answers, “’Bout taking your Harley for a spin?”

 

“Yeah. Remember what I said?”

 

“You said ‘When pigs fly,’ boss.”

 

Murphy’s cruel grin makes Gavin’s blood run cold. “Let’s find out if they do.”

 

And he’s shoved hard enough that his body flies back a handful of feet from the roof’s edge, hands clawing desperately for something— _anything,_ to grab onto. But he’s only met with air, the dizzying sensation of free falling numbing him to the abuse his face has endured, as he begins his two story plummet to the ground below.

 

Gavin doesn’t know if he screams. He doesn’t know if he cusses or cries or says anything at all. In those final seconds before impact, he thinks of gray eyes and a coy smirk, of kisses that taste of tobacco and red wine, arms that curl around him in a protective embrace. Of damaged, wilted roses Gavin hasn’t had the heart to throw away—fucking sentimental shit he’s too proud to admit—and the weight of an old phone, his only connection to Nines, as it sits in his hand.

 

Gavin thinks of all those things, of how much more _time_ he wishes he had, and as his body hits the ground, his last thought to Nines is, _I’m sorry I never said it._

 

* * *

 

His eyes blink rapidly, the blinding lights causing them to water. They pass quickly overhead and he is left with an odd sensation of floating upon a solid surface, blurred figures at the edge of his vision looming close. He can’t quite focus on any one thing as there’s a plethora of sensory assailing him as he comes to: garbled words and shuffling feet, obscure faces passing along his peripheral, extreme pain that screams from every pore of his skin and yet somehow feels faraway, as if he can sense that he is in pain but _isn’t_ really feeling it.

 

It’s too much, all at once, and Gavin finds himself slipping to the numbing depths of his subconscious, separating himself from the confusion of the waking world.

 

There are times when he wakes, as brief as they are, and he’s so drugged up, he can barely distinguish the consistent beep of the monitor by his bedside from the distant clicking of shoes as a nurse shuffles about the room. Too often, he’s left so overwhelmed, he welcomes the embrace of sleep, doesn’t fight it as his heavy lids slip closed and he’s pulled into the images his mind has wrought.

 

A gun’s barrel pressed to his forehead, it’s cold metal sending a warm shiver down his spine. Soft lips pull into a lopsided grin, gray eyes dancing with mirth.

 

“Your turn, Detective,” a hot voice whispers, each word tickling Gavin’s lips.

 

And that’s when Gavin realizes how close they are, of the man holding the gun to his head pressed up against him, hard muscle straining beneath a fitted, tailored suit. There’s a challenge in those eyes Gavin’s long since fallen for, worn on a face he’s loved for years. Thrill-junkie that he is, Gavin knows his answer before he has to think about it, utters it with a husky, “Take the shot, asshole.”

 

The gun clicks.

 

“Bang, bang,” Nines whispers, before he leans in and takes Gavin’s lips in a soft but hungry kiss.

 

Others are less pleasant, like a montage of crime scene photos hastily plastered upon a bulletin board. The stench of rotting flesh is heavy in the air, so thick he can taste it on his tongue. It leaves Gavin reeling, unsteady legs carrying him across the dim room, and he’s trying so hard not to gag, a cold sense of dread burrowing low in his chest.

 

A torso half-eaten by maggots. Ronald Stanton, known sex trafficker, a cold case dating back to 2035.

 

Jackson Crowe. Hit man. Corpse found with a single bullet wound through the skull, in the summer of 2036.

 

George Banks. Petty dealer. Neck snapped. Winter of 2036.

 

There are more bodies piled across the room and Gavin recognizes each of their faces, knows what that common connection is: Elijah Kamski. Each one was said to have double-crossed the drug King Pin.

 

There’s a soft humming, coming from the center of the room. A tall man, dressed all in black, leaning over a table. He lifts a scalpel, his back to Gavin, and the detective can’t quite see what the figure is doing, though he sees the hand descend on a corpse lying on the table, watches as the man works. There’s the snapping of a rib cage being cracked open and Gavin flinches at the sound, his feet unwilling to carry him any closer.

 

“Darling, you should know better than to disrupt me when I’m at work,” the voice teases.

 

The figure slowly turns but Gavin would know that voice anywhere, feels his chest flutter despite the horror he’s surrounded by. The dim light flickers, casting longer shadows across Nines’ face but even with the blood splattered across his cheeks, he looks as beautiful as any demon masquerading as a Saint.

 

He approaches, walking with the grace of one who can blend into the shadows, the grays of his eyes bright even in the darkness. There’s a soft smile on his lips and it fills Gavin with warmth because he knows that it’s _only_ for him, that only Nines can make the monsters lurking in the dark seem less terrifying.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Nines says, lifting a bloodied hand to tilt Gavin’s face up. He leans down, not quite kissing the detective, the scent of him overpowering the thick taste of copper in the air. “But I must say, this is a welcome surprise.”

 

Gavin’s pulse races and he makes a sound of protest as Nines pulls back, stands on the tips of the toes and only just manages to chastely taste those lips. The gangster chuckles, a light sound that makes the detective feel heady and he can’t bring himself to care about anything else in the room. Nines is here and that’s all that matters.

 

Something wet and throbbing is pressed between them and as Gavin drops back to the balls of his feet, he glances in the space between them. “Babe...”

 

And his eyes widen, words dying on his lips, as he stares at the beating, dripping heart held in the palm of Nines’ hand.

 

The gangster must notice Gavin’s distress as his lips curl in a small frown. “Gavin...it’s not what you think.”

 

Terror fills his veins with ice, a sense of panic growing inside of him. Nines gestures to the body on the table, chest cavity ripped open, face turned towards the pair. Cold, unseeing gray eyes pierce into Gavin’s soul. “He said I could have it.”

 

And that’s when Gavin realizes he _knows_ that face, sees it every time he brushes his teeth in the morning, every time he’s preened for a night with his lover. There’s no mistaking that day old stubble and hideous scar across the corpse’s nose.

 

There’s a hysteria building in him, the shock of seeing himself dead making him want to fall to his knees and scream out in horror. And yet, even as his desire to flee the sight before him has him ready to turn tail and run, he is stopped by a pair of questioning, gray eyes.

 

“It belongs to me,” Nines whispers, though there’s a hesitation that turns it into a question.

 

And that’s when Gavin is aware that he’s given a choice. He knows what Nines is, knows better than anyone what shit the man’s capable of, even if he hasn’t seen it himself. He has only to look at the crime scene photos, the details put into each kill, each positioning of the body, to know that it’s been staged by those crafty hands that take as easily as they can give.

 

The same hands that have carved horrors into flesh have also worshiped his with affection and Gavin knows that not even the worst Nines has done can make him deny the gangster anything.

 

In truth, there never was a choice.

 

“Yeah, it does,” Gavin says, burying the last of his fears as he takes Nines’ hand in his.

 

And even when he awakens from such dreams, stares blearily in the emptiness of the hospital room, Gavin feels a dull ache in his chest, wishes with every fiber of his broken body that Nines was by his bedside, squeezing his hand and reassuring him that everything would be okay.

 

The worst of his dreams are the ones so vivid, he can’t discern them from reality. His mind convincing him of what he knows can’t be real but fuck, is he desperate enough to want to believe it is.

 

It’s one of those nights shortly after his surgery, as his consciousness remains in a state of flux, so high on morphine he can hardly stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time before he’s slipping back into restless sleep. At one point in the evening, he blinks open his eyes, stares groggily at a figure looming over his bed. He can’t quite focus, sees only the dark outline of a person as his eyes struggle to adjust to the dull shine of the bedside lamp.

 

“...ng?”

 

His throat is so hoarse from disuse, it comes out as a gargled sound.

 

“Darling,” a warm voice says, quietly.

 

Hot tears spring to Gavin’s eyes and in his misery, he feels one trickle down the side of his temple. A careful touch swipes it away and though his skin stings from the contact, bruises hardly faded, Gavin would endure all the pain the world has to offer if it means Nines’ hands would never leave his skin.

 

“N-Nines,” he tries to say but his lips can’t quite form the word.

 

“I’m here.”

 

Gavin attempts to lift his bandaged wrist but feels so numb, he can’t be certain he even raises it off the bed. It doesn’t matter as fingers slide against his hand, grasping it with a tenderness that has his heart thudding in his chest. He slowly feels everything come into focus, eyes blinking away the moisture to stare up at the gangster by his bed: Nines is as gorgeous as when he last saw him, hair carefully styled and dressed as immaculate as always. But even in the confident demeanor Nines projects, Gavin’s tired eyes can discern the cracks: the sudden lines of stress that furrow between the gangster’s brows, the barely concealed bags beneath his eyes. Though he’s smiling, there’s a grimness to his expression that gives away the stress Nines has endured, of something having upset the gangster to a point that not even his usual controlled facade can hide.

 

Gavin wishes he knew what it was so he could put Nines’ mind at ease.

 

“Babe…?”

 

“There is something I need from you, Gavin,” Nines says and Gavin doesn’t miss the hard look in the gangster’s eyes, nor the way his grasp tightens possessively on the detective’s hand. “I know you are exhausted and you should be resting. Had I any other choice, I wouldn’t be here. I...shouldn’t be here.”

 

In his delirium, Gavin can’t quite understand _why_ when all he wants is for Nines to not leave his side.

 

“A name,” Nines continues. “Gavin...I need to know **who** did this.”

 

Nines’ voice quivers with an anger Gavin can’t quite place, with rage that burns with the power to decimate cities. All in a simple, soft-spoken request, Gavin can feel the seeds of hatred planted in the answer before it’s given and he should know to keep his fool mouth shut but he can’t quite think straight, can’t see any reason to not answer what’s been asked.

 

Nines leans closer as Gavin parts his dry lips. The name tumbles clumsily off his tongue but the instant recognition in Nines’ cool gaze tells him all he needs. “M-Murphy.”

 

And then, his hard expression is gone, replaced with a serene smile. It’s as if the lines from his face dissipate with a single word, the stress from earlier lifting from the gangster’s shoulders. He squeezes Gavin’s hand. “Thank you. You should rest now.”

 

In his desperation, Gavin’s cracked voice is uttering, “Don’t go.”

 

There’s something in the way Nines is looking at him that makes Gavin’s chest ache from more than the beating his body took. There’s only a brief moment of indecision and then he’s settling in the chair beside the bed, quietly pulling it closer, his hand refusing to leave Gavin’s. Carefully, he brings Gavin’s bandaged hand to his lips and presses a gentle kiss to his exposed knuckles. “Of course.”

 

And he stays there, holding Gavin’s hand, as the detective’s lids begin to droop and the drugs lull him back to sleep.

 

It’s sometime later, when Gavin awakens and sees the chair hasn’t moved, that there otherwise appears to be no evidence of anyone having been in his room overnight, that he’s overcome with a loneliness that leaves tears shamefully spilling down his cheeks for something that never was. With the haze of the drugs wearing off, he knows now how fruitless it is to want Nines to be there when it doesn’t make sense for the gangster to risk exposure over _him_.

 

But fuck, does it not make him miss the gangster any less.

 

“Gavin.”

 

Gavin’s heart thuds at the sound of his name.

 

Blearily, he watches as a handsome, familiar face shuffles towards his bed. There’s a relieved smile on the man’s face, moles stark against his pale skin, and Gavin feels hope swelling in his chest, his pulse racing.

 

Then, he notes the pair of brown eyes filled with concern and struggles to not let his disappointment show.

 

“You’re awake,” Connor says, his voice heavy with the emotions swimming in his eyes.

 

He goes to reach for Gavin, as if out of reflex, and then hesitates.

 

It’s that hesitation that has the tension thicken between them, Connor’s hand falling limply to his side. The next few seconds are unbearably awkward and what makes it worse is that silence had _never_ been awkward between them before. But something has changed between them since Gavin had Chen reassigned as his partner last month and the man who had once been his partner, best friend, and lover, has simply become his boss.

 

Hell, this is perhaps the most they’ve said to each other in weeks and Gavin still hasn’t opened his mouth.

 

“Hey,” he croaks out, desperate to fill the silence with anything.

 

“The nurse said you’ve been recovering well. How are you feeling?”

 

Coming from anyone else, Gavin would be more put off at the obvious deflection to avoid the piles of baggage between them. But seeing how Connor struggles to keep a pleasant air about him, Gavin knows the lieutenant is genuine. Fuck, even with the shit they still need to deal with, Gavin would be losing his fucking mind right now if it was Connor in his place.

 

So, Gavin answers him. “Like shit.”

 

Connor cracks a smile.

 

Fuck, is his throat dry.

 

There’s a glass of water with a straw on the nearby side table. Connor takes it and positions it so Gavin can easily sip from it. His head still feels too heavy to lift so he merely turns his face to the side, pain shooting across his cheek as it presses into the pillow. He doesn’t want to think of the damage done to it, nor of the new scars he most likely will have.

 

After he’s had his fill, Connor sets the glass back down and pulls the chair closer. Not as close as Nines had in Gavin’s dream but near enough that Gavin won’t have to strain his hoarse throat to be heard.

 

“I’m happy to see you’re back to your old self already, Gav. I’ve been...” He swallows, looks down at the floor. There’s regret in his voice and Gavin can tell he’s holding back what he really wants to say. Instead, he pulls out a miniature recording device and takes a moment to compose himself. “I hope you don’t mind. Standard procedure.”

 

Gavin would shrug if he could. He would nod if his head didn’t feel like it’s full of bricks. The truth is, he’s too fucking tired to address the elephant in the room and would much rather play the role of a victim of a violent attack than a scorned ex-lover. “Go for it.”

 

“This is Lieutenant Connor Anderson of the Detroit Police Department, selected to conduct this interview on behalf of the Criminal Investigation Unit. Would you please state your name and occupation for the record?”

 

Connor sets the recording device between them on the bedside table.

 

Gavin gives Connor a look. “...Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire and full-time secret vigilante.”

 

“Gavin, it’s recording! I’m supposed to document this as _evidence_ ,” Connor hisses, though Gavin can already see him struggling to hold back a grin. After a pause, he adds, with a smirk, “Besides, if either of us is Batman, I believe I would be more suited for the role.”

 

Gavin snorts. “Yeah, whatever, Robin.”

 

The laugh Connor releases eases the tension in the room considerably. They end up having to start from scratch but for the first time in weeks, Gavin’s starting to feel better about them in spite of their fractured partnership.

 

When it comes down to detailing the shit leading up to him being flung from that building, Gavin sees little way around it and ends up being more candid than he expects. “Asshole thought I was dirty so he tried to get info out of me on Kamski.”

 

“What lead him to believe that?”

 

“Fucked if I know,” Gavin answers. And really, even if Murphy had some inkling of Gavin’s ‘arrangement’ with Nines, that doesn’t explain why he would think Gavin’s been bought by the drug lord.

 

Connor frowns. “Did Murphy give any indication of why he’s interested in Elijah Kamski?”

 

“Said something about a deal going south last month. Think he’s trying to hit the fucker where it hurts.”

 

He doesn’t mention Nines and he doesn’t plan to.

 

“This matches a case assigned to Chen the other day. A person of interest with connections to Kamski was brought into the ICU in critical condition. Detective Chen managed to get a victim’s report after he came out of his coma but other than identifying Murphy as the culprit, he is otherwise being uncooperative when we try and question him about Kamski.”

 

Connor falls into a contemplative silence, his brows furrowing. After a moment, he adds, “I am starting to suspect the rumors we’ve heard of a developing turf war may be true.”

 

Over the next few days, Gavin feels his strength begin to return. He’s awake for longer periods at a time and manages to fill the boredom watching shitty reality show marathons and sharing memes with Tina. His partner pays him a visit almost as soon as he’s given the okay to have visitors and she practically flings herself on top of Gavin, in tears.

 

“Gav, I’m so fucking sorry!” she cries, hugging him so tightly, he’s half convinced she’s cracked his ribs in a new place. “If I hadn’t gone on that stupid date—”

 

But Gavin isn’t having it. “C’mon, Chen. This shit could happen to any of us. What kind of wingman would I be if I dragged you out to a B&E after hours?”

 

That manages to calm her down but he can still see the guilt on her face even as Gavin asks for the ‘deets’ and Tina gushes about her new girlfriend. He’s really happy for her since he knows how hard it is to find anyone with the crazy hours they work and it’s been some time since he’s seen Tina like this. It makes him ache even more for Nines. And with his fractured hip and broken leg, Gavin’s got at least another three weeks here. Having left his burner phone back at the apartment, he won’t even be able to text the gangster during his recovery.

 

One morning, after going for x-rays, he returns to his room to find Chen sitting by his bed. She’s come in every day to see him, even if only for a few minutes, and usually brings him coffee from that cafe they like since there’s only so much of the shit the hospital has that Gavin can take. As the nurse helps Gavin out of the wheelchair and back into his bed, he sees a bouquet of red roses on the bedside table.

 

“Geez, Chen, always took you for a sap but did you really need to bring me flowers?”

 

“They were here when I got here,” Tina says.

 

“These were delivered to the hospital while you were receiving your x-rays,” the nurse adds, before quietly excusing himself.

 

Tina takes the bouquet and hands the tiny card it came with to Gavin. Gavin feels his heart begin to hammer in his chest as he unfolds it and instantly recognizes the neat script.

 

_Darling_

 

And with a single word, a hot blush splashes across his cheeks.

 

“Thought you said things with you and Nick were casual,” Tina snickers and Gavin’s half tempted to hide under his blanket to avoid the inevitable probing he knows he’s about to get.

 

‘Nick’, of course, was the first name he came up with after Tina caught sight of the love bites that have become a regular occurrence on Gavin’s neck.

 

“It is,” Gavin grits out but now his neck feels hot and he knows he’s not fooling anyone.

 

“Yeah, sure, Gav.” He scowls as she hands him the bouquet but it doesn’t stop him from sniffing the sweet roses. Ever since that night Nines showed up with that damaged bouquet, Gavin’s not been able to smell roses without thinking of him. “Shit. Looks like they got damaged.”

 

Gavin looks at the one she indicates to: a single stem, absent of any flower, as if it’s been snipped off. The rest are otherwise in perfect condition.

 

_Of course you fucking would,_ Gavin thinks, fondly.

 

The smile doesn’t leave his face for the rest of Tina’s visit.

 

For the remainder of his stay in the hospital, the roses become a constant. Every few days, a new bouquet replaces the old one, each time with a single rose snipped off. The messages remain innocuous enough: _Gavin. Darling. I miss you. Get well soon._ The only time Gavin feels any trepidation over the gift is when he returns from his first physio session to see Connor reading the card, an odd look on his face. Gavin tenses and for a moment, he thinks, _No way does Connor not fucking know_ because Connor would recognize his brother’s hand writing anywhere.

 

But then, Connor’s placing the card back down, an uneasy smile on his face. “It seems Nick really cares about you.”

 

Gavin can’t meet Connor’s eyes as he’s helped back into the bed. “Y-yeah. I guess he does.”

 

And somehow, it makes the tension even more unbearable than usual as Connor informs him of the latest development in the hunt for Elroy Murphy. All the while, the lieutenant’s eyes periodically stray to the bouquet of roses.

 

* * *

 

“Fuck’s sake, Con, I’ve got this.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

With an annoyed huff, Gavin hobbles across the apartment on his crutches. Though his hip and legs have mostly healed, the doctor recommended he continue to use the crutches for the remainder of the week and avoid putting too much pressure on his right leg. He can’t say he’ll miss the cast but he does miss the dicks Tina drew all over it.

 

“It’s not like it’s my first time using these.”

 

Connor gives him an unimpressed look and for a moment, Gavin could swear it’s the exact same expression Nines would be wearing if he was here. He tries not to think of that as whenever his thoughts stray to the lover he hasn’t seen in a month, it leaves a dull throbbing in his chest.

 

“Trouble does have a way of finding you,” Connor admits.

 

“Well, I’m one tough mother fucker to kill.”

 

The lieutenant cracks a small smile and for the first time all morning, Gavin feels like he can fucking breathe again. Admittedly, he wishes Tina had been the one to bring him home after he was discharged but she was off following a lead on Murphy. That left either Connor or Hank, since Chris was on patrol that morning, and beyond an awkward obligatory visit from the captain during his stay at Detroit Memorial, Gavin’s got a feeling it’ll be a while before the two are on speaking terms again.

 

“I will stop by after work and drop off a few groceries,” Connor promises. “I brought a few things this morning when I came to collect your clothes. However, I suspect you will be in need of more than orange juice and bread. Any requests?”

 

“Smokes?” Gavin asks, hopefully.

 

Connor frowns. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. As I will also pretend there isn’t a very distinct smell of tobacco in this apartment.”

 

“Sure thing, Lieutenant Buzzkill.”

 

“Gav...”

 

The detective rolls his eyes, shifting on his crutches to ease the weight on his left foot. “C’mon, Con. I fell off a fucking building. If I can survive that, I can survive a few cancer sticks.”

 

“...I don’t believe that’s how lung cancer works, Gav...”

 

“I’m guessing there’s a lecture here. Gonna have to take a rain check, Con: Doc says I should stay off my feet.”

 

“Funny how you’ve become quite cooperative when on the ride over, you couldn’t stop complaining about the doctor’s request that you take this week off.”

 

“Wow, look at the time: pretty sure you’ve got a city to save, Robin,” Gavin says, ushering Connor towards the door as best as he can on his crutches.

 

“I thought I was Batman.”

 

Gavin smirks. “Well, you’re a Wayne but you ain’t no Bruce.”

 

“...so I’m not even the Dick Grayson of Robins? You wound me, Gav.”

 

There’s a _daddy_ joke in there somewhere that Gavin wisely avoids saying. Both him and Connor are chuckling now, even as the lieutenant is one foot out the door. Before shutting it behind him, Connor adds, quite earnestly, “If there’s anything you need, Gav— _anything_ —you know you can always call me.”

 

And Gavin does know. Because in spite of everything, he knows Connor will always have his back.

 

Once Connor’s gone, Gavin makes the tedious journey to his bedroom. It’s only mid-morning and he knows Nines will probably be busy doing...whatever he does, but Gavin is still anxious to finally have contact with him after receiving nothing but roses and notes over the last month. Propping his crutches against the wall, he eases into a sitting position on the bed and pulls open the night stand. There’s an array of things in there—mostly half used bottles of lube, condoms that they’ve since stopped using, and that silk handkerchief from their first time. Gavin’s fingers linger on it for a moment and he feels his dick begin to fill, memories of being bent over as Nines’ hot, quiet moans filled the air ringing in his head. In truth, it would take very little to get him hard at this point as he’s not gotten off since before his hospital stay and was currently in the midst of the worst case of blue balls in his life.

 

Pushing aside those thoughts, he grabs the phone, tucked all the way in the back, and sees there are a few missed messages. Settling comfortably on his bed, he props a pillow behind him and unlocks the screen.

 

The first one has him smiling.

 

[9s Apr 12 07:38 PM]

_Dinner is waiting for you at home. I have also prepared food ;)_

 

But as Gavin notes the date, he feels a thick lump forming in his throat.

 

[9s Apr 12 09:13 PM]

_ETA?_

 

[9s Apr 12 11:03 PM]

_Darling, where are you?_

 

[9s Apr 12 11:21 PM]

_If you are working late, please let me know._

 

There are also a few missed calls, received after midnight. Guilt has Gavin swallowing hard. He usually keeps this phone in his glove box but he left it at home that day, wanting no distractions at work so he could get his shit done and make it back to Nines. The thought of Nines pacing around his apartment, feeling at any moment a sense of _doubt_ , makes Gavin wish he was falling all over again as the physical pain he’s endured is more bearable than the thought of hurting Nines.

 

Opening the text messages once more, he sees there’s another he missed.

 

[9s May 02 12:29 PM]

_Message me once you have returned home._

 

And he’s doing just that, thumbs flying across the touch keyboard.

 

[Gavin May 11 09:51 AM]

_bck home_

 

[Gavin May 11 09:51 AM]

_fcking hate hospitals_

 

[Gavin May 11 09:51 AM]

_shitty food, shitty coffee. fcking bullshit_

 

He looks over the messages he’s sent and feels like an even bigger ass. First time Nines has heard from him in a month and he’s bitching about hospital food?

 

“Fucking moron,” he mumbles to himself.

 

He takes a moment to collect his thoughts.

 

[Gavin May 11 09:53 AM]

_sucked not seeing u_

 

As soon as he hits send, Gavin wants to bash his head on the nightstand. What was meant to convey how much he misses Nines seems just as accusatory and why the fuck is he so shitty at expressing himself in every medium?

 

[Gavin May 11 09:54 AM]

_babe, cn u come over?_

 

He sighs shakily, his fingers trembling as he types something out. The words remain unsent on his screen as he agonizes over them: he’s felt them every day since he awoke from his accident but he’s never said them before, never had the courage to make himself this vulnerable to Nines.

 

He deletes them. Then retypes them. Then deletes them again.

 

Finally, he types them out and hits SEND before he lets his insecurity get the better of him.

 

[Gavin May 11 09:58 AM]

_i miss u_

 

He doesn’t wait to see if he gets a reply, shaking hands setting the phone down on his night stand. Lying back, he curls onto his left side and not even the ache in his chest can keep the exhaustion at bay as he feels himself slip into a dreamless sleep.

 

It’s late in the afternoon when he wakes up to the sound of someone moving around in his apartment. He immediately tenses, a wave of fear washing over him in his groggy state because what if it’s that fucker Murphy, come back to finish the job? Gavin’s firearm is in the other room and why the fuck did he ever listen to Connor’s stupid rule about no guns in the bedroom? That should have been the first one he broke after Connor left.

 

As he thinks of his ex-partner, he relaxes. Connor’s got the spare keys and he did say he’d stop in after his shift. Most likely, he’s fumbling around in the kitchen and filling Gavin’s fridge with all sorts of non-junkie food. The one thing Gavin certainly doesn’t miss is all the fucking quinoa Connor used to put in everything.

 

Grumbling under his breath, he slowly sits up, winces as pain shoots up his right side. As he’s reaching for his crutches, his sleep-addled brain is already thinking of quips to toss at Connor who, for whatever fucking reason, can have all the grace of a predatory cat when on the hunt for a perp but somehow becomes the world’s biggest klutz when it comes to navigating Gavin’s apartment. More god damn sleep would be nice but it’s about time he take his pain killers anyway.

 

By the time he maneuvers his way to the door, Gavin’s ears pick up a sound: humming. He can’t shake the feeling of deja vu as he exits into the living area, a tall figure leaning over the stove as he hums softly to himself.

 

There’s no mistaking that profile and Gavin can feel his lips pull into a wide grin as his crutches take him into the kitchen. He almost trips over his own feet in his eagerness and were he not temporarily infirm, he’d be grabbing that handsome asshole and pulling him into his arms, lips pressing to every inch of his skin as Gavin lavished his flesh with unspoken apologies. So desperate is he to feel Nines in his arms, he’d be dumb enough to bet it all for this moment to be real, for it to not be another trick of his mind as he fell into fitful sleep.

 

He’s about to reach for the gangster, fingers lingering where the sleeve of the man’s dress shirt is rolled up to his elbow, when something about the gangster’s demeanor makes him hesitate. “...Nines?”

 

The gangster continues to quietly hum as he stirs the pot of soup. For a moment, Gavin thinks he hadn’t heard him but then Nines is tilting his head, a lazy smile on his lips. “It’s good to see you, Gavin.”

 

There’s something almost distant and faraway about the way he addresses the detective, as if Nines is physically _there_ but his mind is not. Everything about him is _off_ and as Gavin takes in the sight of him, a feeling of dread begins to percolate low in his chest: blood lines the collar and cuffs of his shirt, splattered across the side of his face. And it’s clear that the blood is not his.

 

“...babe?” Gavin tries again, trying to bury that unsettling feeling. “You okay?”

 

The gangster stops his humming, eyes flickering over to Gavin. Though it’s still quite bright out, Nines eyes are heavily dilated, the grays disappearing almost completely, and there’s a wildness to his gaze that makes the calm smile he’s wearing look that much more deranged. “Of course I am, darling. I am preparing soup: a family recipe. Something my mother had made every time one of us was sick.”

 

Gavin recognizes the rich smell of it, no different than what Connor used to make whenever he had a bad case of the flu. Still, it doesn’t stop him from peering into the pot, half-expecting to see a human head in there, and nearly sighing in relief to see it’s simply just soup. “Babe...”

 

He touches Nines’ elbow softly and nearly falls back on his bad leg when the gangster flinches away from him, the ladle he’s using clattering to the floor. Gavin only just manages to keep his balance by leaning onto the right crutch, though he can’t help but feel hurt that Nines seems so repulsed by him. Fuck, he knows Murphy did a number to his face but the bruises have faded and he walked away from it with only another scar cutting into his left brow. All he’s wanted for weeks now is _Nines_ and this is quickly turning into the worst kind of reunion.

 

“Look, if you’re pissed then, yeah, I get it was a dick move following up on that tip instead of coming straight home,” Gavin starts, pausing to lick his dry lips. “Fuck...we saw where that shit got me. Assholes set me up and I walked into it like a fucking idiot—”

 

“I didn’t finish the job.”

 

It’s spoken so quietly, Gavin almost doesn’t hear him.

 

“They got to you because I left a job unfinished,” Nines says and for the first time in their conversation, there’s a sharpness to his gaze, as if he’s only just becoming aware that Gavin’s in the room with him. His hands begin to tremble and he busies them by beginning to put away the spices he’d left on the counter. “All of this is my fault.”

 

“C’mon, Nines, it’s not—”

 

Gavin shrinks back as Nines smashes one of the glass spice bottles to the floor. His precarious control slips and it leaves him looking like a feral animal ready to attack. Fear courses through Gavin’s blood and he’s too terrified to speak, to tempt whatever rage has driven Nines to such a state. “You don’t seem to understand that I put you at risk! I _failed_ you _,_ Gavin!”

 

And that word is spoken with so much contempt, so much malice, it crackles on the gangster’s tongue. Gavin sees how much Nines is struggling, sees the guilt and regret in his eyes, and it doesn’t matter to him that Nines is ready to lash out and inflict that pain on the next thing that provokes him. Nines is breaking down in front of him and Gavin will be damned if he lets the gangster take the blame for his stupidity.

 

He sets the crutches against the fridge, uses the counter to balance him as he hops on his left foot. “Nines, baby...”

 

Though trepidation has him wanting to stay back, Gavin presses forward because he knows Nines would never hurt him.

 

_Don’t push me away_ , he silently begs.

 

“If I am unable to protect you, I should not be—”

 

Hesitantly, Gavin slides an arm around Nines’ waist and the words die on Nines’ lips. He half expects Nines to pull away again and is ready to have his touch rejected. But then whatever resolve the gangster has is cracking and Gavin’s being tugged into a firm embrace, Nines trembling in Gavin’s arms. Gavin holds him tightly, buries his face in the crook of Nines’ neck, doesn’t care that his nose is pressing into the blood splatter left by whoever the fuck got on the gangster’s bad side: Nines is here and Nines _needs_ him and Gavin can give two shits about everything outside of them.

 

“It’s not your fault,” Gavin whispers hoarsely as his eyes begin to prickle. “Fuck, Nines, don’t even think like that.”

 

He holds him, his hands rubbing soothing circles on Nines back and slowly, he feels the other man begin to relax within his arms. They don’t say anything for a long while, content to cling to each other as the weight of what they had almost lost settles over them like a dark cloud. Gavin doesn’t fear death but if nearly dying can drive Nines to such a state, he will fight to his last breath to keep Nines from ever feeling this way again.

 

He presses his lips softly to the gangster’s neck and it stirs him from the quiet reverie he slipped into, Nines lifting his head and gazing into Gavin’s eyes. At some point, he shifted so most of Gavin’s weight is supported by his hard frame, an unyielding levee against the violent tides that threaten to sweep them away. There’s a clarity to his expression that was missing earlier, his eyes swimming with all the things they’ve avoided saying. So many times, has Gavin wanted to give what they have a name but it always falls short before it reaches his tongue and pride has him swallowing it back before he exposes how much _this_ matters.

 

Instead, he’s reaching to touch Nines’ smooth cheek, the side of the gangster’s face not splattered with blood. Even with his cherubic face painted in the cruelty his hands have unleashed, Nines can only look beautiful in Gavin’s eyes.

 

“I missed you,” Gavin admits, a tremor in his voice. It’s the closest he’ll come to saying what he shies away from, that word forever eluding him. “So fucking much.”

 

An unguarded smile graces the gangster’s lips and there’s something almost melancholic about the way he’s looking at the detective. He turns his head, kisses the inside of Gavin’s palm, lashes fluttering closed with the gesture. It almost always stupefies Gavin how easily Nines can go from rage to tenderness, the most perplexing part of it is why Nines feels Gavin deserves the gentle warmth buried beneath the beast.

 

As he opens his eyes, Nines whispers, with as much weight as Gavin had, “I have missed you, too, Gavin.”

 

Almost shyly, he leans down to brush the detective’s lips with his own and Gavin senses the uncertainty, as if Nines is silently asking permission to continue. But he doesn’t need to ask as Gavin’s already sliding his hand behind the gangster’s neck, his mouth claiming those lips he’s not tasted in so long with a desperation built on every moment he’s yearned to see Nines again. Memories were never enough as the marks those lips had lovingly left on his skin faded while he was bed ridden and he’s eager to have Nines mark him once more, to taste his neglected flesh and announce to the world that Gavin belongs to _someone._

 

But just as Gavin’s feeling his cock fill, a needy growl bursting at the back of Nines throat when Gavin whimpers into the kiss, the gangster begins to pull back. “Gavin...we _shouldn’t._ ”

 

Nines is rock hard and fuck, Gavin’s almost forgotten how fucking hung he is, as he presses his bad thigh against the gangster’s erection. He ignores the pain that shoots up his side, pins Nines against the sink behind him, Gavin’s voice cracking with want, “There’s a lot of things we shouldn’t be doing. Hasn’t stopped us before.”

 

“Gavin.”

 

Fuck. He’s using his ‘Connor’ voice. Well, they have the same fucking voice but it’s that one Connor uses when he admonishes him and it’s annoying as shit.

 

“Nines,” he practically begs, the moment ruined when he attempts to grind his thigh on the gangster and ends up hissing painfully instead.

 

Careful hands on his hips gently push him back, though the firm grip keeps Gavin from falling back off balance on his injured leg. “You are hardly in any condition to engage in those ‘things we shouldn’t be doing’.” And there’s an amused twinkle in those lust-blown eyes, “We will have to visit ‘Pound Town’ some other night.”

 

Gavin groans, face flushing in embarrassment, and drops his head on the gangster’s chest. “One time. I said it one fucking time. Anyone ever tell you you’re a giant dick?”

 

He feels the gangster’s chest move with his laughter. “You comment on that part of my anatomy all the time.”

 

“Har-dee-fucking-har. Laugh it up, Dave Chapelle.”

 

“I...have no idea who that is.”

 

Gavin lifts his head and huffs in frustration. “C’mon, Nines. I’m not _that_ much older than you.”

 

“So says the man with the fractured hip.”

 

“Because I was dropped from a building! Not like I fell over picking up the morning paper,” Gavin complains.

 

Nines tilts his head, feigning confusion. “This...paper that you speak of. Are you referencing an outdated method we once relied on for receiving updates on local events?”

 

Yeah, Gavin gets that print’s been endangered since his tweens but now he knows Nines is just fucking with him. “You’re a real fucking comedian, you know that, babe?”

 

“Perhaps I have chosen the wrong career path.”

 

Reaching around the gangster, Gavin begins to run the water in the sink. He takes one of the hand towels and dampens the corner of it, using the wet end to start dabbing the blood off Nines’ cheek. Nines holds the detective securely against him, a softness to his gaze as he quietly watches Gavin work. There may have been a time Gavin wondered who the fuck’s blood is on his lover but he hardly gives that a thought as he cleans him up.

 

“Rough morning?” Gavin jokes, though he’s not really expecting Nines to elaborate.

 

“I had some unfinished business to take care of.”

 

His brain fixates on Nines’ vague response, though he’s too weary to draw a connection with its relevance to the gangster showing up as he had. He decides it can’t be that significant and lets the thought go.

 

“I am sorry for coming to you in such a state,” Nines says. Gavin’s not even sure if Nines is referring to the blood or his behavior earlier.

 

He knows how much appearances mean to Nines and seeing him like this is no different than catching someone with their hand on their dick. So, he merely shrugs it off. He doesn’t care how ruffled up Nines is: Nines being here with him is all he could ask for. “You left a shirt last time. Think it’s in the closest. Or you could wear one of mine.”

 

Nines wrinkles his nose at the suggestion. “I think I would prefer my own shirt that—if memory serves me correctly—had some of the buttons torn off in your haste to undress me.”

 

“Okay, first off,” Gavin complains, his blush reaching the tips of his ears as he cleans blood off Nines’ neck, “you don’t want your shirts to rip, stop wearing tight fucking clothes. And second,” he strains the towel in the sink before returning to his task, “my ‘I’m-not-an-uptight-asshole’ style is on fucking point, you ungrateful prick.”

 

“Whatever you say, darling.”

 

They banter as Gavin finishes removing as much of the blood as he can, all the while, Nines running his hands down the detective’s back as he continues to tease him. The detective welcomes the return to their normal and once he’s done, he allows Nines to help him to the couch and gratefully accepts a bowl of the soup the gangster prepared. After the shit he’s had to eat in the hospital, the healthy broth takes like a fucking orgasm in his mouth and not even the bitter aftertaste of the medication he takes with it can ruin his mood.

 

Turning on his television, Gavin distracts himself with more of those shitty reality tv shows he got hooked on while in the hospital. He hears Nines cleaning up in the kitchen, the gangster having already apologized for taking out his wrath on a bottle of cumin. Gavin had simply smirked and said, “Who the fuck likes cumin? Thyme also tastes like shit so feel free to chuck that one out, too,” to which Nines, who prides himself for his culinary thumb, had looked affronted and told Gavin he’s no longer allowed to have opinions on spices. Dick.

 

Eventually, Nines returns to the couch, his hair neatly slicked back and wearing the gray dress shirt that had barely survived Gavin’s manhandling of it. The top three buttons are gone, exposing the pale flesh down to the middle of the gangster’s chest and Gavin greedily drinks in the sight, his eyes already mapping a path between the stark freckles his tongue can trace. He’s sprawled across the couch on his left side and shifts as Nines settles behind him, an arm carefully curling around the detective’s waist, above where his damaged hip is healing. Gavin wishes he could turn around, press the entirety of his front into the gangster, but even he’s not reckless enough to disobey the doctor’s orders and chance another visit to the hospital. His dick can wait if it means he’ll heal faster.

 

“Want me to turn it off?”

 

Gavin grabs the remote on the table.

 

“Keep watching,” Nines says and then starts to drag his mouth along the back of Gavin’s neck, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses on his vertebrae.

 

Gavin swallows hard as blood rushes to his dick. At this point, all Nines has to do is _breathe_ and Gavin’s half sure he’ll be at full mast and well on his way to cumming. Fuck, it’s been too long.

 

“But you hate this shit.”

 

Nines finds TV to be mindless, can barely sit through a few minutes before he’s distracting himself with something else. Case in point, Gavin’s neck. Not that Gavin’s complaining. He once got Nines to watch cat videos with him on YouTube, post-coital, and will take his small victories where he can find them.

 

“I want you to do what makes you happy.”

 

As Nines’ lips pull skin between them, his mouth suckling gently on the flesh, Gavin knows exactly what will make him happy in that moment. He abandons the remote, shifts back to carefully grind his ass against Nines and is pleased to find the gangster’s as hard as he was earlier, his hand ghosting over Gavin’s cock as he teases the detective’s flesh. He alternates between tonguing the marks he’s leaving behind and mouthing at unblemished skin and within minutes, he’s worked up Gavin so much, Gavin can’t even hear the shit blaring on the tv, is too consumed by the feel of Nines’ lips and hands on him.

 

“Th-thought you said we’re not gonna do this,” Gavin groans, his abdomen tingling as Nines traces his fingers along the hem of the detective’s DPD sweats.

 

“We are limited in what we can do, given your condition,” Nines whispers. Then he adds, huskily, “But I believe there are still ways I can make you feel _good_ , detective.”

 

With great care, he tugs Gavin’s sweats down to the middle of Gavin’s thighs, exposing his dripping cock to the warm air of the apartment. The detective almost sobs as the gangster takes him with a firm hand, weeks of being practically untouched making him quiver and gasp as Nines moves his hand up the shaft. As he thumbs the head of it, Gavin releases a whine, grinding harder than he should back into the gangster and trying not to wince. Nines tuts in his ear, “Careful, darling, or I will have no choice but to stop.”

 

Gavin turns his head, presses his lips to the corner of Nines’ mouth. As Nines slowly pumps his hand on his cock, he tries not to thrust up into it, as desperate as he is to chase that delicious friction. Gavin’s usually more ambivalent about someone else jacking him off, unless there’s a cock deep in his ass, but after the forced dry spell he’s just been through, Nines’ hand feels fucking fantastic. He utters the gangster’s name with a low groan, kisses him hungrily as the pressure on his dick grows tighter. Nines builds a steady rhythm that has Gavin keening against him and though he can’t be inside the detective—and fuck, does Gavin miss having his bare cock deep within him, can’t help but picture all the times Nines has fucked him both gently and relentlessly—his tongue is doing what his dick is not, thrusting into Gavin’s mouth as he kisses him senselessly. There’s a tightness growing from Gavin’s balls and he knows he’s not gonna last, couldn’t even if he wanted.

 

Gavin’s hand snakes back between them, eagerly seeking the erection pressing into his ass. It’s difficult to focus with the multitude of sensations he’s experiencing, the ache inside of him screaming for some form of release. But somehow, he manages to undo Nines’ pants, is freeing his cock enough so that the wet tip is digging into his cheek, smearing pre-cum along the firm flesh. The angle’s a bit awkward for Gavin but he wraps his fingers around that thick shaft and attempts to match Nines’ pace, something hot curling inside of him as Nines gasps his name against his lips. Every sound he can stroke out of the gangster is music to his fucking ears and all he wants is for Nines to moan an aria of his name, to think of and feel only _Gavin_ as he brings the cocky asshole to completion.

 

“G-Gavin,” Nines pants, voice broken. And nothing’s as hot as knowing he’s been suffering just as badly as the detective has.

 

“Babe,” Gavin groans, and loses his train of thought temporarily as Nines groans just as loudly, thrusting gently into Gavin’s hand, “B-babe, I-I’m gonna—fuck!”

 

He can’t even be sure if it’s his name on Nines’ lips or the eager stroking that finally does him in but Gavin’s cumming hard, coating his lover’s hand and his shirt in his own spunk. As waves of bliss wash over him, he only belatedly notes the hot cum that spills across his ass as Nines finishes moments later, and both of them are left trembling in the wakes of their orgasms, hands absently milking each other to prolong the pleasure coursing through them. Gentle exhales tickle his sweat-slicked skin and as they come down, Nines lazily kisses Gavin, lacing their cum-coated fingers together.

 

After some time, and many shared kisses and whispered sweet nothings from the gangster (and no, Gavin’s not blushing like a fucking sap when the dumbass tells him how gorgeous he looks covered in his own cum), Nines begins to shift behind Gavin. “As loathe as I am to do this, I believe I’m in a better position to find something to clean us up with. And I think you’ll be needing a new shirt.”

 

“You saying you don’t like this ‘Gavin Reed’ original? Made it myself,” Gavin smirks, grinning as he wipes his hand on his shirt.

 

Nines’ eyes darken and there’s no mistaking the hunger in that look. Fuck, if Nines doesn’t stop looking at Gavin like that, his dick’s gonna take interest again and Gavin’s gonna start begging for a quick fuck, doctor’s orders be damned. “You know precisely my feelings on your current...state. However, I do not imagine you want to be sleeping in that shirt tonight.”

 

In the end, Nines helps Gavin out of his shirt and they use it to wipe off the remainder of the ‘evidence’ from their activities on the couch. Gavin knows better than to ask but he feels Nines takes a particular kind of joy in defiling an old piece of beloved furniture that had once belonged to his mother.

 

Once he’s finished putting away Gavin’s used dish and tidying up a bit more, Nines returns with a shirt and a blanket. Gavin’s already half passed out and blearily puts the old t-shirt on, stifling a yawn. Similar to before, Nines spoons him from behind and lowers the volume on the television before wrapping an arm tightly around Gavin’s middle. With a warm blanket thrown over them, Gavin snuggles back against Nines’ chest but just before sleep takes him, there’s a thought that’s prickling at his brain, something he’s wondered since he’d stop slipping in and out of consciousness in the hospital.

 

“Hey, Nines...did you stop by when I was in the ICU?”

 

Though he can’t see Nines’ face, Gavin gets the sense of something shifting in the gangster’s demeanor. But that sensation is gone not a moment later and he simply writes it off as his tired brain messing with him. “Gavin, you know how I feel about hospitals. It wouldn’t have been wise to make an appearance.”

 

And as Nines kisses the back of his neck, his lips pressing unvoiced regret into the detective’s flesh, Gavin decides it must have been a dream after all. With Nines’ arms around him, he slowly drifts into the most peaceful slumber he’s had since the fall because he knows, that with the gangster there, not even the night terrors would dare disturb them.

 

* * *

 

It’s some hours later when Gavin’s awoken by a knocking on the door. He ignores it, buries his face into the cushion, and wills whoever the fuck is there to go away so he can get some damn sleep. It’s when he hears the turning of a key in the lock that the detective sits up so abruptly, his right side digs into the couch and he grunts out in pain.

 

The door’s opening before Gavin can so much as reach for his crutches, Connor shuffling into the apartment, balancing two bags of groceries. The lieutenant looks beaten down, exhausted, but there’s a hint of color in his cheeks as he notices the detective on the couch. “Sorry, Gav. I didn’t know you would be sleeping out here. I was just going to drop these off and head home.”

 

Gavin’s eyes widen and he hastily glances to the space behind him. Empty.

 

He’s not sure how he feels about that. Part of him is relieved because the last thing he needs is to be caught cuddling with his ex’s twin on the couch. But it doesn’t stop him from feeling slightly hurt that Nines fucked off without letting him know.

 

“Jesus, Con, you fucking startled me,” Gavin mumbles, scratching the back of his neck. He gives a loud yawn and takes the crutches that have been propped against the coffee tables. Nines must have done that. “Weren’t you supposed to finish hours ago?”

 

It’s well after 11 PM, according to the clock above his tv. Gavin remembers something about Connor promising to drop in after work but that should have been a while ago. A closer look at the lieutenant and Gavin gets the distinct feeling that something’s wrong: Connor looks disturbed and barely meets Gavin’s inquisitive stare as he answers, “I got held up at a crime scene.”

 

Using his hip to shut the door, Connor then heads towards the kitchen. Gavin lets the blanket pool to the floor as he follows after the lieutenant and he knows that whatever it is must have had some effect on him because Connor doesn’t even bother to reprimand Gavin for that. Instead, the lieutenant begins to put away fruit and a few other items he purchased, each action seeming to take a lot of effort.

 

“Hey, Con...something up?”

 

Connor fumbles with the milk, only just keeps it from dropping. He sets it on the top shelf of the fridge, and lingers for a few moments with his hand on the open door, as if it’s the only thing holding him up. Then he answers, with some reluctance, “We found Murphy.”

 

At the mention of that prick, Gavin feels a white hot flash of anger and can’t help but sneer, “I hope you threw that fucker in the coldest cell we got. Asshole better get life for what he fucking did.”

 

“Unfortunately, there won’t be a chance to get a confession from him: he’s dead, Gavin.”

 

The shock of what he’s been told does little to tame his ire. The words come out before he can stop himself. “Yeah? Well good fucking riddance.”

 

“Gavin!”

 

There’s a sharpness to Connor’s tone, a disapproval that does more to enrage Gavin than warn him to back down. “Don’t even try and tell me that fucker didn’t deserve whatever he got, Con! You don’t—you can’t fucking get the shit he put me through. How many fucking times I woke up in that bed thinking I...”

 

He releases a shaky breath, tries to bury that queasy sensation of falling all over again. Of the explosion of pain all over his body in the moment he blacked out. Of the trauma he’s silently endured in that lonely hospital bed, with the nauseating smell of sterile cleaning agents and the bland taste of food becoming so familiar to him, he briefly entertained the horrific thought of dying in that fucking place. He’s only started to physically heal but there are parts of him that he knows never will and if Connor expects him to have any empathy for the piece of shit that put him there, he’s about to have a real fucking wake up call.

 

There’s a comforting hand on his shoulder that Gavin’s half tempted to shrug off in spite. He doesn’t look at Connor’s face, can only brace himself for whatever ‘high road’ moral shit the lieutenant’s about to feed him. “There is no excusing what he did. And had you...if you had...I...”

 

The waver in Connor’s voice has Gavin deflating and he sees now that the lieutenant is struggling to keep it together, can’t even bring himself to voice the fears that have haunted him since finding out Gavin was in the hospital.

 

Setting aside his crutches, Gavin pulls Connor into his arms, his heart thudding with a dull pang as Connor returns the embrace tightly. The smell of Connor’s aftershave, the strong grip in which he holds Gavin against him...all of it rings with a familiarity that makes Gavin briefly yearn for what they were before, almost wish they could set back the clock and they had a second chance to do things _right._

 

_You are mine, Gavin Reed,_ a voice whispers in his head and Gavin recalls the unguarded affection he’s seen in his lover’s eyes and those soft lips that seem to have the power to heal all his scars every time they worship his flesh.

 

And suddenly, letting go of Connor feels like this is always how it had to be.

 

So as they pull apart, Gavin lets that regret remain buried in the past, along with the rest of the resentment from their fallout that he once carried.

 

Unshed tears shine in the lieutenant’s warm eyes and he sighs, shakily. “I don’t feel pity for Murphy. Not after what he did to you. But, Gav, we need to be better than this.”

 

_Do we?_ Gavin thinks, bitterly.

 

He leans back against the counter to keep weight off his right leg and folds his arms over his chest. Knowing he’ll get nowhere in any moral argument with Connor, he asks, instead, “So, what did the fucker in? Shot to the head? OD’d?”

 

That seemed to be how they found most of these assholes: either they pissed off the wrong person or they partied too hard on whatever shit they’re hooked on.

 

That same look from earlier returns to Connor’s face and he seems once again torn between how to answer. He hesitates, licks his dry lips, before finally answering, “It’s...somewhat more complicated than that.”

 

When Connor doesn’t elaborate, Gavin huffs in annoyance. “C’mon, Con. It can’t be _that_ bad: a body’s a body.”

 

Wordlessly, Connor pulls out his phone and hands it to Gavin.

 

The first image is one of a room in a warehouse, blood splattered across the floor and all over a chair, where a mostly intact torso is tied to. All the limbs have been removed, along with the head, and Gavin can’t help but feel a sinking, sick dread numb him as he swipes to the next picture.

 

A close up of fingers, a few feet from the body, bent in a way as if twisted off with a crude device.

 

The next, parts of a limb, skin flayed and chunks sawed off.

 

Another, with the legs both removed in a similar manner, as if whoever did it took their sweet ass time to make sure Murphy felt every moment in pure agony before he croaked.

 

Murphy’s head. Nose cut off, one eye pulled out, the skin on one cheek sliced away. But he remembers that face as clearly as if he’s standing on the rooftop and staring the asshole down, just before he took his plunge.

 

Gavin hands the phone back to Connor, unable to look any more. “...fuck.”

 

“I left some of the rookies at the crime scene, to collect the rest of the evidence,” Connor says, quietly. He’s still quite shaken, has to shut off the screen before he puts away his phone. “It was torture, plain and simple. Someone was angry and they made sure Murphy knew this up until the moment of his death. We aren’t sure if it’s blood loss or the removal of his head that killed him.”

 

And slowly, the pieces begin to come together: Nines _was_ there, that night, and Gavin told him in a drug-induced haze who it was. That’s how Nines _knew_ that his ‘unfinished business’ is what made Murphy go after Gavin, why the gangster was so distraught earlier when he arrived covered in…

 

Gavin’s eyes fly over Connor’s shoulder to the sink behind the lieutenant. The sink where he tossed the bloody hand towel he used to clean up Nines earlier. He suspects he knows whose blood is all over it, would bet his fucking life on what exactly that ‘unfinished business’ was that Nines dealt with earlier.

 

A sudden urge to vomit has Gavin gripping the counter tightly.

 

“We have added this to the Kamski case,” Connor says, his voice barely heard over the panic threatening to consume the detective.

 

Gavin’s eyes dart up to the lieutenant’s and he hopes his distress isn’t showing. Yet there’s a faraway look on Connor’s face, as if he is also lost within his own head, replaying the horrors he witnessed earlier at the crime scene. He adds, in a dazed whisper, “I believe Rich did this.”

 

And that panic that’s been building in Gavin has him swallowing hard, struggling to keep his voice from hitching. He takes a sobering breath and acts nonchalant and dismissive of Connor’s deduction. “Con, you know him better than anyone else: he wouldn’t do this Jack-the-Ripper shit. The cold cases we’ve tried linking him to: all clean kills. Murphy doesn’t fit his MO.”

 

“You don’t know what he’s capable of, Gavin,” Connor insists, and there’s a kind of fear in his eyes Gavin’s never seen before. “What he’s...”

 

He cuts himself off before he can finish the thought, startled by what it is he almost said. And that’s when Gavin realizes that there’s something he hasn’t told told the DPD, yet another of the many things Connor’s kept secret. It should upset him but this is the same man he dated for more than four years, who, in their seven year partnership, never once told him he had a twin brother. The same man who brought him to family gatherings at the Stern household where all traces of Nines’ existence have been wiped: from the few family photos on display, showing only Connor with Amanda and the late Edward Stern, to Amanda and Connor reminiscing about a select handful of memories without any mention of the forgotten Stern twin.

 

Connor and Amanda have cleaned their hands of Nines as if he’s nothing more than a stain of dirt. And if Connor can go most of his adulthood pretending to be an only child, why should it surprise Gavin that there are other things the lieutenant hasn’t been honest about?

 

“I should get home,” Connor suddenly says. “I promised I’d take Sumo out.”

 

Seems a bit late to be walking a dog but Gavin knows an evasion when he hears it. He’s in no mood to press the lieutenant, the images from the crime scene flashing in his mind, and almost absently, he answers, “Yeah, you probably wanna get on that.”

 

“Have a goodnight, Gav.”

 

Gavin grunts out a goodbye, remains leaning against the counter as he hears the front door close, and lock, behind Connor. White-knuckled, he stares down at the floor, blood and torn flesh playing in his head like a shitty b-grade horror film montage. He _named_ Murphy. He’s the one who sent Nines after him.

 

Murphy is dead because of Gavin’s big, fucking mouth.

 

The door to his bedroom clicks open, and quiet footfalls pad across the floor. Gavin knows who it is, knows Nines can be silent if he wants. The only reason he hears the gangster is because Nines wants Gavin to know that he’s still there.

 

Those feet stop in front of him and Gavin’s staring down at a pair of freshly polished oxfords. He imagines they were covered in blood that morning, as Nines slowly sawed off each of Murphy’s feet, taking his sweet time in letting the serrated edges of the device sever bone. Murphy would have screamed and begged but Nines wouldn’t have cared: every note of his misery would have sounded like justice in Nines’ twisted head.

 

Careful fingers tilt Gavin’s face up until he’s staring into a pair of cool, gray eyes. There’s something wild and possessive in them that leave the detective shivering. “You understand now why I had to do it. I had to protect you, Gavin.”

 

Nines’ hand drops to the space between them.

 

As Gavin stares into the face of the man he’s come to know intimately, of the man who can make his skin yearn for his touch, can make his heart ache for his presence, Gavin knows in that moment what he’s avoided admitting to himself all along: he’s in love with a monster.

 

“I know, babe,” Gavin says, reaching up to gently stroke Nines’ cheek.

 

He takes Nines’ hand in his, doesn’t miss the understanding and clarity that shine in those eyes, of the significance of what he’s saying.

 

Gavin should be repulsed.

 

Nines _killed_ for him.

 

Yet as Nines leans down and kisses him softly, Gavin can’t bring himself to feel guilty about it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you were lost by the Robin reference Gavin makes to Connor, “Well, you’re a Wayne but you ain’t no Bruce," Gavin is referring to Damian Wayne, who is the current leader of the Teen Titans in [DC Rebirth.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Rebirth)


End file.
